Desperate Measures Read online

  Erik shook his head. “No, it’s something way more important than guns, and maybe more challenging.”

  Lanara stopped for a second, eyeing him while she rubbed her chin. “Now you’ve got me intrigued. Talk fast before I get bored. I have a lot of work to get done today.”

  “I’ve been logging a lot of hours in this ship,” Erik replied. “And I think before this is over, I’ll be logging a hell of a lot more.”

  “So?” Lanara asked. “This is a nice ship. I’ve spent a lot of time on crap buckets. You could have ended up stuck on that tiny little Rabbit bucket.”

  “Sure, the Argo is a nice ship.” Erik grinned. “But it could use the comforts of home.”

  “Use the stupid rec room then.” Lanara folded her arms. “Is there a point to this?”

  “Penjing,” Erik declared.

  “That plant stuff you do?” Lanara asked. “What about it? I don’t know crap about plants, Blackwell. I’m an engineer, not a botanist.”

  “But I need a skilled engineer.” Erik gestured to the ceiling. “I can use automated watering and certain things, but those plants need me, and it’s supposed to be part of how I relax. I want to bring them along, but I can’t have them falling the first time we do a hard burn. The shape of penjing plants is their big thing.”

  “That’s it?” Lanara’s brow lifted. “You’re asking me how to bring your stupid plants on board?”

  “Yeah. I was thinking, I don’t know, a crate. We bolt it to a wall.” Erik shrugged. “You know where I can install things without messing things up.”

  “Huh.” She scratched her cheek. “That’s what you’ve come up with? Bolting a crate to a wall?”

  Erik shrugged. “I tie the bases down and bolt the crate in. They’ll survive most situations.”

  “You’re a shit engineer, Blackwell. No offense.”

  Erik laughed. “I’m an intelligence contractor. Before I was a cop and before that, I was a soldier. Nobody’s ever mistaken me for an engineer.”

  “It’s not about the training.” Lanara tapped the side of her hair. “It’s about the mindset.”

  “You’re saying you’ve got a better idea?”

  Lanara looked down, her brow furrowed in deep thought. “I’m thinking we could install a shelving system with lids.” She snapped a finger. “Oh, I’ve got it! Then we could install some dedicated grav field emitters. Arrange them in formation around the container, and it can keep the plants secure even if we’re getting the hell beat out of us. If we do it right, those damned plants will be the only things that survive.”

  Erik couldn’t bring himself to tell her it was unreasonable to worry about his plants in ship-to-ship battles. He appreciated it. If he didn’t die in the battle, he’d damned well want his penjing plants to survive.

  “That’s possible?” he asked. “It won’t take up too much power? I don’t want to mess with holy efficiency.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest something that’s impossible.” Lanara frowned. “That’d be a waste of our time. I can do the nearly impossible but not the totally impossible.”

  “It sounds great to me,” Erik agreed. “But you’re the one who’s always complaining about efficiency.”

  “It won’t be a big thing if it’s just for your plants.” Lanara tapped her PNIU and brought up a power consumption chart for the ship filled with smaller graphs and numbers. “You don’t have a whole room of these plants, do you? I can’t set up something to support a greenhouse in here, or at least, not anything that’s going to survive the first battle.”

  Erik shook his head and gestured with his hands. “No, small table-sized arrangement.”

  She watched the size he pantomimed the setup with his gestures. “That’s it? Ha. This will be super-easy.” Lanara paced in the narrow space between Erik and the wall. “I’ve already got enough efficiency gains from my last set of upgrades to power the dedicated grav field emitter without affecting any of the rest of the ship’s performance. Also need to rig up an appropriate UV system. We might as well add a dedicated watering system. Emma can help with that when you’re on board, so it’s not like we need any programming modifications.”

  “Then it’s a go?” he asked, a bit surprised.

  “Easy. Pathetically so.” Lanara almost looked insulted.

  “It’s ready, Erik,” Emma announced.

  “Oh.” Erik shook his head. “Thanks, Lanara, but I have to run and pick up a tux.”

  “A tuxedo?” she asked. “For what?”

  He sighed as he turned to maneuver through the knee-deadly area. “Something truly dangerous and painful.”

  After swinging by the store to pick up his new tuxedo, Erik headed back to his apartment in the MX 60. Despite his trepidation about the upcoming event, he was feeling good.

  He’d missed his plants more than he expected during their last major sojourn into space, and it was good to know it would be an easy solution, or at least an easy one for Lanara.

  “You confuse me,” Emma announced, eschewing a visible form.

  “Because I’m a fleshbag?” Erik replied. “That’s kind of our thing for you.”

  Emma scoffed, the derisive tone extra thick. “No, most fleshbags aren’t that confusing. If anything, you’re far too predictable.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Your penjing,” Emma offered cryptically.

  “What about it? You’ve never been offended by my hobby. Should I be doing virtual penjing?”

  “I didn’t say I was offended. I said I was confused.”

  “By penjing?” Erik asked. “Come on. All that AI analysis power combined with a human-derived brain pattern, and relaxing hobbies are confusing?”

  Emma sighed. “I suppose I should clarify so you’ll stop being so insultingly dense. Moving the penjing plants to the ship has implications, ones I’m surprised you haven’t made more of an effort to explore.”

  Erik shook his head and twisted the control yoke to change lanes. Women were hard to understand. AI women were worse.

  “Okay,” he admitted. “I’m not following you.”

  “Your apartment is rather spartan,” Emma explained. “You’ve purchased the basic necessities to make it livable, but you spend little time there other than when you’re sleeping, and that’s not even getting used that much. You’ve spent 72.47 percent of your nights since the end of May at Jia’s apartment rather than your own. It seems wasteful to maintain a living space you don’t plan to use in terms of efficiency, money, and general life logistics.”

  Erik laughed. “You’re saying I should move in with Jia? Are you going to be the Virtual Mother-in-Law backing up Lan Lin?”

  “No, that’s not my suggestion.” Emma appeared in the passenger seat in her classic white maxi dress, arms folded. “That’s not all that efficient either. Considering your current focus, you need to minimize your distance from the Argo. It’s not impossible you’ll be called to track down a member of the conspiracy fleeing from Earth in a ship.”

  “Moving closer to the hangar seems pointless. It’d shave a few minutes off. Besides, we have the jumpship now. Nobody’s escaping that.”

  Erik’s gaze dipped to the cameras. Nothing out of the ordinary. He’d let himself get lazier with Emma as his co-pilot, but he would never give up full control.

  “Why maintain an apartment?” Emma asked. “Why not live on the ship like Lanara?”

  “She lives on the ship because she’s all but married to it. I have a life. I don’t want to be Mr. Argo.”

  Emma gave him a dismissive look. “That life doesn’t seem to necessitate having the apartment. You don’t host much of anyone besides Agent Koval, Jia, and occasionally Mr. Constantine. You can sit around in bed or in a chair on the Argo the same as you could in your waste of an apartment. That’s all I’m trying to point out. I also suspect you already are thinking that on some level, and the penjing setup is the beginning of that.”

  Erik’s hands tightened on the control y
oke, and he frowned. He wasn’t sure why Emma’s suggestion was pissing him off so much. From her perspective, it made perfect sense, and everything she’d said was right.

  He took a deep breath and thought about the source of his resistance before shaking his head.

  “No,” he declared.

  “No?” Emma raised an eyebrow. “Is there any logic to your intransigence in this matter, or are you being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn?”

  “I am being stubborn,” Erik admitted as he slowed and descended into a new lane, taking a moment to enjoy the blur of the towers surrounding him on all sides. Some people viewed the metroplex as a depressing forest of metal and glass, but he appreciated what it also represented: rebirth.

  The Second Spring had destroyed old Los Angeles in a nuclear fire during the Summer of Sorrow, killing millions.

  It would have been easy to avoid the area and leave it to be a monument to the cruelty and viciousness of the darkest parts of humanity. It wasn’t an easy cleanup, as reminders like the Scar proved, but the United States and the world had arisen as one to reclaim the area. Erik found that inspiring in its own way.

  “I’m a lot like Neo SoCal,” Erik murmured. “We were both almost killed, and both of us came back stronger with a new purpose. Then the purpose changed.”

  Emma looked unconvinced. “I’ve seen no indication you have any desire to cease your vengeance over what happened on Molino.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” Erik took another deep breath. “Emma, when I got back to Earth, I didn’t think about anything except my revenge. Everything I did was part of setting up for that, including this flitter. It was a disguise, a way of throwing people off my trail. The apartment was the same thing. None of it was part of a plan for a life because I didn’t care about what happened after my revenge. I wasn’t even sure I’d survive it.”

  “I see.” Emma smiled softly. “And now you have a reason to live after this all over. Jia?”

  “Yeah, Jia, and someone’s got to keep the DD from snatching you back. I’ve got shit I care about now. I’m not giving up on my revenge, especially now that we’re on their track, but the last thing I want to do is go back to my old way of thinking.”

  She paused. It was a tiny hesitation, but after so many conversations with the AI, he caught it. “And you’re worried that if you live on the ship, you’ll be nothing but a vengeance-obsessed man with no future?”

  “That’s part of it.” Erik slowed. His residential tower was near. “It’s also about keeping this under control. The Argo isn’t my ship. It’s a loaner from Alina and the government, and they’re only going to continue giving me nice toys as long as I’m useful to them. If I’m going to plan to survive all this, I need to make sure I have something of my own.”

  Emma disappeared. “I understand. If it makes you feel any better, the problem might be solved by you dying long before this is all over.”

  Erik laughed. “Not going to happen.”

  Her voice floated from the speakers. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’m too damned stubborn to die.” Erik glanced at the garment bag in the backseat. “But that doesn’t mean certain people might not get lucky.”

  Chapter Seven

  July 9, 2230, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Lin Family Home

  Before meeting Erik as a young cop, Jia couldn’t hold her alcohol. A single beer represented a grievous threat to her self-control.

  She used to take pride in that, feeling it was a sign of her avoidance of vice, but it’d also made her mother’s parties treacherous affairs. Now, with her newfound tolerance, she could soothe her worries with some wine without risking humiliation.

  Jia smiled and plucked a glass from a tray carried by a white-clad and white-gloved waiter. He offered her a polite nod before wandering away.

  On the surface, the elegant affair, the men all tuxedo-clad and the women in beautiful dresses, should have summoned pure relaxation. Sprightly live music in the form of an erhu and guzheng pair gave the night a touch of class.

  Jia couldn’t give in to that feeling since her lingering concern about her family’s opinion was weighing her down.

  She tried to distract herself by watching the guzheng player pluck her instrument with precise movements and the careful bowing of her partner. There was nothing more mesmerizing than a skilled instrumentalist, but even focusing on the music didn’t calm her heart.

  Jia sipped her wine. Erik was beside her, filling out his black tuxedo to perfection and matching her plunging black gown well. Jia tried to tell herself not to be nervous. They’d been to several parties now without incident, but when Mei had called and said she would be absent because of a business trip, Jia had gotten worried.

  If her mother had some clever scheme, waiting until her sister was gone would be a smart and tactical chance to hatch it. On the other hand, her mother and sister typically worked as close allies, and Mei’s absence might be evidence of nothing being on tap.

  The uncertainty added to Jia’s stress.

  Erik swallowed a snack he’d been chewing. “I’ll give it to your mom. These crab puffs are really good.”

  “Mom sprang for real crabmeat,” Jia offered between sips. “I’m not just saying it’s not printed. I’m just saying it isn’t artificial.”

  “Nice.” Erik waggled his eyebrows. “Then I’m going to have to stuff my face with your parents’ money.”

  Jia smiled, some of the tension leaving at Erik’s antics. Considering how much he’d been dreading the party, he came off as more relaxed than she was.

  “Leave some for the other guests,” she ordered.

  Erik saluted. “Yes, ma’am.” He inclined his head toward the crowd. “Be on your toes.”

  Jia followed his gaze. Her mother glided through the crowd effortlessly, her attention focused on her daughter and Jia’s boyfriend. There was no anger or disappointment in her face, which was a good start.

  Lan Lin could be difficult to deal with at times, but she’d seemingly dropped her objections to Jia dating Erik. However, Jia couldn’t ignore the possibility it was all part of a long-term plan to ambush them and break them up.

  She needed to get through this night. She swallowed wine as her mother stopped in front of them.

  “I’m surprised,” Lan offered, her careful gaze sweeping Erik and Jia.

  “Surprised, Mother?” Jia replied. “About?”

  “You managed to make it.” Lan glanced at Erik’s plate laden with crab puffs. “You always cancel at the last minute, so I’d assumed you’d come up with some excuse not to attend this party. It’d likely sound very convincing.”

  Erik plopped a crab puff in his mouth, leaving Jia to face her mother alone. He smirked.

  The bastard.

  “It’s not like we’re purposely trying to avoid your parties,” Jia explained. At least it wasn’t like that all the time. “We’re busy, and since we don’t work for the NSCPD anymore, our job takes us to a lot more places. I should point out Mei isn’t here.”

  She’d ask Mei for forgiveness for selling her out.

  “Mei didn’t miss my last two parties.” Lan’s face twitched into a tight frown. “Your new job is really that involved?”

  Jia sighed. “I wouldn’t say it’s that involved, but we have to be ready, and we’re protecting a lot of different clients, so our schedules are not always our own.”

  She’d grown better at lying, but that wasn’t the same as being comfortable with it.

  Lan nodded slowly, some of the disapproval on her face drifting away. “It’s unfortunate. I was hoping when you left the police department, you would have more time to spend with your family, but now you’re always out of the country or off the planet, getting involved in trouble even when you’re not trying to. Like on Venus.”

  Erik swallowed his latest crab puff. “That’s what it means to be successful, right? To be busy?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.�
�� Lan motioned to Jia. “But I don’t want my daughter to spend all her time working harder, not smarter. You two spend so much time doing the work directly. Why not become management and hire staff to handle shooting at people?”

  “It’s not about the money,” Jia insisted. It was difficult to win arguments with her mother when she couldn’t tell the woman the truth about what they did.

  “Is this some sort of thrill-seeking thing?” Lan asked. “I can’t blame you for running into trouble you don’t expect, but I thought you said the new job was quieter than being a cop.”

  “It is,” Jia lied. “Overall.”

  Erik waved down a crab puff waiter to refresh his exhausted supply. Lan paused in her interrogation of her daughter to survey the room, locking onto each and every waiter and waitress individually to ensure they were circulating and no guests were in distress.

  A proper hostess could multitask to ensure her event was unfolding smoothly while lambasting her daughter over her life choices.

  It was both one of her talents and a skill she had worked on for what seemed like a century. Having two talented daughters had required her to stay on point more than once.

  “It’s not going to be forever,” Erik interrupted.

  Lan and Jia both looked at him, awaiting clarification.

  “Things are busy right now because we’re establishing ourselves,” Erik explained. “But this isn’t going to last forever. We’ve already accomplished a lot in the short time since we’ve gone private, and we have clients who really trust us. I think with a little more of a push, we could do something like you’re suggesting.”

  Lan nodded slowly, looking satisfied. “That was all you had to tell me, Jia. Sometimes you make things more difficult than they have to be. Besides, it’s unnecessary for you to work, isn’t it?”

  “It is?” Jia asked with surprise. “Since when do you not want me to work?”

  “I want you to have influence, which isn’t necessary if you choose the right man.” Lan glanced at Erik. “He spent a long time in the military. Consider it rude if you want, but I have noticed his vehicle and his apartment. Money’s not much of an issue, and you both have fame now.”